Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Super Excited! (with a heavy southern accent, please and thank you)

The girls and I are starting a Bible Study.  I am super excited!
It's going to be fairly laid back and kind of more like an accountability group.  Basically we'll each take a turn leading and just share what the Lord is teaching us in our own quiet times.  But not quite that informal.  We're each going to choose a "theme" to follow in our private quiet time.  This way when one of us leads, the rest of us will kind of know what to expect.  It also keeps us accountable for actually pursuing a study with purpose.
I repeat - super excited.

This is great for me because I've always felt that it is my responsibility to invest in friendships with girls rather than guys at this point in my life.  I had the mixed friend group thing going real well in high school and it was great.  I was also in a mixed sunday school class.  But, as I've gotten older and (hopefully) gained a bit of emotional maturity, I've discovered how easy it is to invest emotions in a guy-girl friendship that shouldn't be there . . . without even realizing there is any investment going on at all.
That is not to say that I'm not friends with guys.  My friendships with guys are just a little more regulated than those with girls.  Almost everyone in my life is familiar by now with my "no one-on-one with boys" rule in friendships.  It has not been an easy rule to maintain and has caused me no little grief on a few occasions, but it has totally been worth it.
On the most recent grief-causing occasion, a friend wanted to take me out to coffee.  I'll spare you the entire complicated story, but in the end I discovered that he thought it would be a good idea to "invest" in a friendship with me because he felt like we could "get" each other and help each other on this road that is life (my words, not his).
This particular friend works with me and we don't really have any mutual friends.  So we had to give up even the possibility of more than a very surface friendship because I felt it wasn't right for us to "hang out" together.  That stung.  It stung both of us.  But the thing is, I can't have a friendship based on one-on-one interaction with a guy without feeling like maybe one of us is attracted to the other in a deeper-than-friendship way.
Admit it, you can't do it either.
We weren't meant to.
We aren't "wired" that way.
However you want to say it, that kind of guy-girl investments are not a good plan unless they're with out-in-the-open intentions of more than a friendship . . .  But that's an idea for another day.

I promise all this relates back to the Bible Study thing.  And here's how it does:
I haven't been in a Bible Study for a while now because all the ones I knew of were mixed.  (Well, not all, but all the ones I really would have considered on the basis of doctrine and genuine desire of the participants to pursue God.
Now you may be shocked at me for having a problem with mixed Bible Studies, so let me immediately say
I do NOT have a problem with mixed Bible Studies.
However, I do have a conviction from the Lord that, at this point, my purpose is to invest in girls.
And, girls, let's face it.  We are not completely honest about our insecurities, joys, fears, desires, quiet times, lives . . . you name it . . . around boys without investing deep emotions.  And in a Bible Study, one goal is to be raw and honest with each other about our lives and bring the scripture to bear on them.
So, in order to do what I want to do - help girls, learn from girls, go arm-in-arm with girls - I need this girls' Bible Study.
We all need it.
So, super excited!

PS - Please tell me if you feel I need some correction or am off-base regarding this touchy issue of guy-girl friendships (I am definitely not an expert and this is definitely not a treatise or lecture), but do keep your concerns grounded in scripture.

4 comments:

  1. YAY! I ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PERCENT support your guy-girl friendship rule. Honestly, if I had learned that in college I would have saved myself from some serious baggage. Baggage that I was surprised to find since I always thought we were all "just friends".

    xoxo!

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  2. Es I think you're right on track! I completely agree with your guy-girl theory. We are definitely not wired that way.

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  3. Hey, This is random, and I know its an old post, but I just wanted to say as a muslim Girl I tootally agree with your rule. Their is a saying in Islam that when a guy and a girl are alone Shaytaan (satan) is the third present. Just saying. Anyway just wanted to congradulate you on using your own morals to make that decision!. God Bless.
    :D

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  4. Esther...I completely agree with you on the guy/girl relationship thing. I have been stung by it in different degrees. Unfortunately I can't seem to handle the prevention side of it as well as you appear to have done, but I have begun to express myself when I feel things are headed in a direction I don't jive with and that's a start I guess. Anyway, just wanted to add my support. Stay strong!

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